


now we see in a mirror dimly

by seraf



Series: backstage passes! [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Extended Scene, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, POV Amami Rantaro, Pre-Game Amami Rantaro, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 00:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18927559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: your name is rantaro amami. before that, you were rantaro amami, and rantaro amami. soon, the fifty-third killing game will start, and you will be a different rantaro amami.what kind of message do you send to the person in the future, living in your skin?( rantaro character study, directly before v3. )





	now we see in a mirror dimly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GalaxyAqua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/gifts).



> this is sort of an appreciation/thank you shortfic for galaxyaqua, for all the time they've spent reading my stuff and leaving super in-depth commentary on it. ( i hope you like it! )

he’s only got about five minutes. five minutes to maybe save his own life and those of fourteen strangers. ( he doesn’t count tsumugi. she can keep her life, he thinks, bitterly. dying in danganronpa is probably how she’s always wanted to go out, anyway. )

 

the school feels like a ghost town. ( it _is_ and it _isn’t;_ it is because of what it represents, it is because of the blood dripping off of lines of code as though the brackets and numbers themselves had pierced through fifteen school uniforms and killed the people inside, it is because of the people who _will_ die there - it isn’t because he’s the only one here, it isn’t because it’s a world made specifically for the killing game and ghost towns are never created for the sake of making them, it isn’t because, technically, no one’s _really_ dying. )

 

( as though that makes it better. as though you can _die_ without some part of yourself dying along with you. )

 

he was given free leave to explore the place for two, three days, make the transition from the virtual reality they’d been keeping his consciousness in to this one. let his muscle memory learn the corners of this place, so there’s just one more reason that future-rantaro-amami seems like he knows too much, walks with experience in his step he shouldn’t have.

 

 _your lab will open after the fourth trial,_ is told to him, and he already knows, from some intuition three games have given him, that he isn’t going to survive that long. maybe that shouldn’t be reassuring. ( he’s too tired to care. ) but, but. if the survivors manage to get there, they might be able to end the game early with the information stored there.

 

so he waits until the moment he knows that his watchers are meeting with the new cast, and takes a marker, and writes out the password - in two different places across campus, spread and ambiguous enough that monokuma won’t think to check and the monokubs won’t be smart enough to realize is important.

 

_horse a._

_twins b._

 

there’s fourteen of them, not counting him or tsumugi. one of them will find them, figure out what it means.

 

survivor’s perk.

 

he feels like he’s being mocked.

 

 _ultimate survivor,_ he reads on his monopad, and isn’t that just the funniest fucking thing? he’s never had a choice in the matter. it’s a title and a harsh reminder and a punishment. in the past two games, he was already dealing with paranoia from the deja vu he couldn’t shake, and this - well, he didn’t pity future him.

 

five minutes to speak in front of the video screen, to save his own life.

 

he paces back and forth in his room, trying to figure out what to say. ( and what not to say, and what they probably won’t _let_ him say. )

 

_i hope you don’t ever see this video. if you do, one way or another, you’ve failed - you weren’t smart enough to end the killing game, and you weren’t dumb enough to get yourself killed. try not to make it to the final two._

 

_this was your choice, and you have to deal with it, but - for once. for once, try being selfish. please. don’t make the same mistake i did, and we did before that, and once before that. just . . . for once, let someone else take the fall._

 

_you have to win no matter what. you wanted this, so we don’t have a choice in the matter anymore. you have to win, because you’re the ultimate survivor now. this killing game is all you are._

 

_do you feel it, when you try and remember your past? that deep sort of emptiness inside you? it won’t go away, no matter how many new memories they give you. that’s just who we are. it’s rough, but that’s just the way it is, you know? you get used to it after awhile._

 

_don’t get attached. you’re going to. but don’t._

 

_the killing game will go until there are two people left. one of them wins. one of them is the sacrifice - they have to take part in the next killing game. if you get to that point - you have to win. you have to. i don’t care what you do, but win._

 

_don’t trust anyone. it’ll hurt like hell, and you’ll want to. and you probably will. that’s just how we are, you know? i want to trust people, even after everything, and chances are . . . so will you._

 

_do you remember having too many birthdays? too many new years?_

 

_don’t kill anyone. i’ve said to not make it to the end, yeah, but it’s not worth that. besides - if you end up being the kind of person who’s more practical than altruistic - you’ve been doing this for long enough now that they’d wanna make your execution a huge, brutal thing._

 

his lab is a mess. grudgingly, he has to admit that he does sort of like it - it’s chaotic and windswept, like him, all a mess of bleeding colors. _real_ blood, not danganronpa blood. when’s the last time he saw himself bleed red? he’s gotten so used to the bright shock of flourescent pink burning afterimages behind his eyelids.

 

tsumugi tells him that he isn’t allowed to let _too_ much slip, in his perk video. he wants to ask her if she could be any vaguer. he doesn’t, just sets up the camera in his lab and crouches for two minutes, wondering if saying any of this even has a point.

 

well.

 

this is danganronpa.

 

it might be pointless, but he has to do it for the possible entertainment value, yeah? that’s what he signed up for. ( as they love to keep reminding him. )

 

he sweeps his hair out of his eyes with one hand, and pictures his future self, with blank eyes and a brow ridged slightly by paranoia. looks into the camera as though their green eyes can match, through time.

 

he wonders if this counts as him dying. rantaro amami will still exist, but _he_ won’t be rantaro amami.

 

‘ hey there, ‘ he starts, looking at the camera. ‘ guess i don’t have to introduce myself, huh? ‘

 

———

 

he doesn’t know much about himself. just that his name is _rantaro amami,_ that he currently is in the academy for gifted juveniles, that he’s eighteen years old, and that it feels like he’s seen their headmaster before. like the kind of thing you remember happening once in a dream. he doesn’t know what’s happening any more than the rest of them.

 

then monokuma appears in his room with another monopad. _this one’s extra-special! whipped it up just for you, so you better be grateful, dammit!_

 

and suddenly, the ground shifts underneath him, just a little bit.

 

he now knows a little bit more about himself. ( he supposes. this _could_ all be a trick. but it . . . doesn’t seem like it. )

 

his name is rantaro amami.

he is currently in the academy for gifted juveniles.

he is eighteen years old(?)

it feels like he’s seen their headmaster before.

he _has_ seen their headmaster before.

 

he can’t trust anyone.

he has to save everyone.

 

( this will mean the difference between your life and death, the monopad had said, followed by _rantaro amami._ reading it one last time as he pushes open the library door, rantaro isn’t sure he knows who that is at all, anymore. )


End file.
